


Don't Remember Me Like This

by Natashasolten



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:44:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natashasolten/pseuds/Natashasolten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After events in the Rialto, Sonny is still alive...barely...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Remember Me Like This

Vinnie peeled off two more one hundred dollar bills and laid them on the chipped, green Formica. The shop smelled of a mixture of stale smoke and Pine Sol. Adding nausea on top of his stress felt just wonderful.

Nasel voice. Bored. “You can pay all you want but they still aren’t finished. I told you. At least one more week.”

“This is for postage and a guarantee,” Vinnie replied. “I won’t be able to pick them up in person. I’ll call with a shipping address.”

The tired-eyed, bearded man behind the counter folded the bills and put them in his pocket. He took the packet of carefully cropped I.D. photos Vinnie handed him. “These will help. My guys said the others weren’t working so well.”

Vinnie ran a hand through his bangs. It didn’t do much; they just drooped down again almost in his eyes. Those photos. He’d had a hell of a time getting enough OCB computer time alone and unauthorized to print them out. It wasn’t that it was hard so much as he had to keep lying, keep pretending everything was okay when clearly it wasn’t. But he’d become expert at looking like he belonged. And lying.

The man said, “One week. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I should have the address by then.” He left quickly, the little bell on the door echoing in his ears as he stepped outside pulling the collar of his leather jacket up, then hunching into himself as he walked to his car.

Later afternoon left the October air gray. He thought it might rain. Or snow. The chill air actually stung at his now mostly healed face. It had been almost three weeks since Sonny had given him that fantastic shiner…and one mildly fractured cheekbone.

The cold worried him a bit. But he’d packed three soft wool blankets. He glanced at the back of the Charger as he got in, saw them folded and stacked neatly on the back seat, along with two pillows.

In his trunk were three duffel bags of necessary items. It would have to be enough.

*

The day after Sonny’s wedding never happened, Vinnie had sat for six hours in a bleach-scented jail cell before Frank came back. He felt frozen inside. Cold and heavy. Hurting. For all that time no one had told him a thing.

He stood as he heard Frank’s acerbic tone echo off the hall. “I don’t care about wrong paperwork! He’s my arrest and I’m taking him to OCB holding now!”

Vinnie watched tiredly, his vision blurred, as his barred cell door opened. Frank grabbed his upper arm and led him out.

As per his training, Vinnie remained quiet. He was cuffed again, hands in front, then brought into glaring sunlight to Frank’s waiting car.

He blinked hard at the sting of the day. The blaze of it careened in his eyes, all wrong.

Once the car door shut, Vinnie said, realizing his voice was very dry, “Why did you leave me so long?”

Frank offered a pained look which stabbed at Vinnie’s heart.

“You left me,” Vinnie said slowly, and started to shake.

“Damn paperwork,” Frank muttered.

“I…I…” He no longer had a voice. His throat swelled.

Frank glanced at him and there must’ve been something very wrong because his look suddenly changed. He reached out and touched Vinnie’s arm, grasping it tight. Then he said gently, “I’m sorry, sport.”

Vinnie took a heavy breath. He was still shaking.

Deftly, Frank undid his cuffs.

“No one’s told me anything.” His voice sounded damp and muffled as it strained from his throat. He pressed his palm between his eyes. “Sonny?”

“He’s alive. Barely. Full life support.”

Vinnie tried to swallow, couldn’t. “Can I see him?”

“Now why would you want to do that?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?” Vinnie looked at him incredulously, the words feeling as if they were strangling him. “Fuck…”

“I meant that at this juncture it’s the last thing you need.”

“What?”

“Haven’t you put yourself through enough?” He started the car.

“But I want…”

Frank interrupted. “He’s not even conscious. The doctors don’t even know. It’s like with lightning strike victims…some recover miraculously who were struck the hardest, others who seem to have minor injuries just die. Some come to with few side effects; others are recovering the rest of their lives. There’s nothing you can do.”

“I don’t care!”

“Just not a good idea now, okay, sport?”

Vinnie felt the overwhelming heat, then, inside and out. It stuttered him, startled him, and he put his arms up on the dash and lowered his head into the folds. He was trying very hard not to cry, and failing miserably.

“You need to go home. Clean up. Get some rest.”

Vinnie shuddered. “My home is the Royal Diamond,” he managed to gasp.

“It would look funny if you went back there. For now, they still think you’re Sonny’s man, but you are technically under arrest.”

Vinnie glanced up then, not caring how he might appear to Frank’s prying eyes. “I don’t have a home.”

Frank’s voice was so soft now it didn’t even sound like him. “Safe house for now.”

Vinnie wiped his face on his dirty white tux sleeve. The skin against his left eye ached. The jail physician had cleaned and taped his cheek, given him Tylenol. Still, his whole body ached. “Whatever,” he mumbled.

They drove in silence.

*

That night, when Vinnie finally fell into bed exhausted, still half wet from a shower, body stinging from various scrapes and bruises, he closed his eyes and the dark swirled menacingly. He started to “lose it” again, covered his face with a pillow thinking maybe he’d scream and feel better…the pillow could muffle it. But he didn’t.

He felt so weak, so unconnected. A great, deep ache in his chest crawled up into his throat. He thought about getting up, getting dressed and sneaking out to a bar, but he was just too tired. His emotions left the pillow damp until finally he slept.

In his dreams, Sonny electrocuted himself ten, twenty times. Over and over Vinnie would jerk awake, lie in the dark for a few minutes catching his breath, then sleep and dream it all again.

Sonny was alive but his subconscious mind seemed to not care about that fact and tormented him with Sonny’s “death” as if it got some kind of glee from seeing Vinnie startle, gasp awake, curse the empty room.

Part of it was he had been so quickly separated from Sonny. He wanted to see him, talk to him. He didn’t know what he might say but that didn’t matter. He just wanted to be there. Be with him. See him breathe. Touch him to feel if he was still warm. Touch him…

*

Frank was his boss and Frank said “no.” He would not be allowed to visit Sonny in the hospital any time soon. It had been five days. Sonny was still alive. Frank was very terse when Vinnie asked about him, but what little information he did garner was that Sonny had been taken off life support and was breathing on his own now. The doctors said he would have died if Frank had not done immediate CPR, and if medics had not been waiting outside with oxygen and other supplies necessary to keep Sonny breathing, keep his heart going. They’d been called the same time the Feds were called when word got out that Vinnie and Sonny were holed up, locked inside the Rialto. It was a miracle, actually.

The current fear was that he would contract pneumonia now as his body tried to heal. 

Well, maybe Frank said “no” but it had been a long time since Vinnie had played by the rules. In this instance, he wasn’t about to start. Maybe he wouldn’t see Sonny today, or tomorrow, but he would see him. He’d had a lot of time to think at the safe house. Certain ideas were taking form in his mind. Certain realities vaguely falling into place.

On his sixth day “resting” at the safe house, Frank had dropped by. He was on his way to the office. It was “Sidney Royce” day. Frank was in a foul mood.

Vinnie wanted to see Royce get his just desserts, and he decided he had a few other chores to take care of at the office, so he begged Frank to let him tag along. “I’m tired of that droning TV and frozen dinners,” Vinnie said, trying not to sound too depressed.

He faked a goofy smile from where he sat in his robe on the couch.

Frank gave him his signature heavy Frank-sigh, then nodded. “All right.”

“Great!” Vinnie jumped up. “I gotta shower but I’ll be fast.”

He cleaned himself up, shaved, combed and gelled his hair. He put on clean jeans and a new leather jacket he’d bought when Frank took him out to lunch two days ago. He smacked himself in the face as he stared at the mirror. “C’mon, Vinnie, show him you’re fine.” His voice shook a little. “Come on!” He lifted his brows, faked a grin at himself. His eyes were bright. The bruises on his face had faded. He looked pretty damn healthy and decided no one would be able to tell otherwise if they didn’t know what he’d been through this past week.

When he walked into the living room, Frank looked up. “You look like you’re feeling better.”

“I am.” Vinnie gave a tight smile, patting Frank on the shoulder.

*

In the conference room with Sid and his lawyer, Vinnie sat back in a very uncomfortable, metal chair and forced himself to be amused at Sid’s fate decided by Frank who got to choose Sid’s new name, occupation and residence.

He had to admit “Elvis Prim” was a stroke of genius. But really, he did not care about Sid except that he should suffer.

Still, he laughed to see Sid reduced to the life of a shoe salesman living in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Frank planned it all out with a smirk. He did not laugh, but he looked pretty satisfied when he was done creating Sid’s new identity. He looked at Vinnie in a funny way when Vinnie couldn’t stop laughing.

The laughing hurt. Dug into him sharply, like acid, and he wondered if he was becoming hysterical.

At the thought, he caught his breath, shrugged in Frank’s direction saying, “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

Frank gave him a small smile.

Vinnie looked quickly away because getting on Frank’s bad side was exactly what he was about to do…if Frank ever found out what he was thinking about.

It was easy that day with his fake jovial mood to regain free reign at the OCB offices. Easy to edge into the computer room just like he belonged – and didn’t he?—and access any files he desired.

The Steelgrave files were his and Frank’s anyway. He had all the codes memorized. Of course he should have been de-briefed first before doing any more “work,” but no one noticed that he might be out of place. Only Frank might’ve noticed, and he was still tied up with Sid’s final paperwork. The OCB was thorough at worst.

Vinnie pulled up Sonny’s file right away and got everything he wanted…and then some. Not only did Vinnie find out which hospital he had been taken to (a detail Frank had seemed to purposely omit in all their conversations about Sonny’s condition) but he got Sonny’s exact room number, the names of all his doctors and nurses, the names of the agents who had rotating guard duty at Sonny’s room door, their hours, their logged break times, everything. The file was so complete that Vinnie could not have asked for better intel. Of course the OCB was careful about detail. They wanted Sonny. He was their prize catch now. They wanted to make sure if/when Sonny got well they would get their prey hook, line and sinker.

Although they could not formally arrest and charge an unconscious man, and they still hadn’t even though Sonny had wakened from his coma, when he was deemed fit they planned to take him in and indict him for the pre-meditated murder of Patrice. And yes, the file stated they would go for “special circumstances.”

Seeing those words in his file, Vinnie bit down hard on his lower lip tasting salt. It would never matter to a court or a judge where the law was pretty black and white that Sonny was only defending himself, that Sonny, in order to live, had had to take on Patrice. No one would care about that detail. Or the fact that Patrice was a monster.

Vinnie did, though. He blinked, looked away for a moment at the wall, then started reading again.

In addition to all that information, Vinnie was also able to get Sonny’s medical charts. Five days of them. Everything was in them. And he read every word. Every injury logged and described. Every test result. Every med they were giving him (morphine was one: “patient complains of severe pain.”) He read every doctor’s notes on his condition, symptoms and speculated prognosis for recovery.

After only five days, Sonny’s healing was rather miraculous. “I knew it’d take more than that to bring you down,” Vinnie whispered under his breath.

There were some details that worried Vinnie. Pain, for one. Sonny’s nerves had been jangled. Memory was another. Until the last report, Sonny had appeared to not understand what had happened. “Patient does not recall suicide attempt, alternately believes he was in a car accident or plane crash.” And there were the burns on his right hand where he’d grabbed the live cable, and his feet where the electricity discharged and melted the soles of his shoes. Sonny was slated for skin grafts on Friday, mainly for his hand. His feet were healing well, the nerves burned out so completely on the bottoms that the report stated he felt no pain there.

The other worry was that there was no indication in the reports as to how long Sonny’s hospital stay would be. If he had to learn to walk again it might be weeks, months. Vinnie did not want to compromise his recovery when he saw him, but he didn’t want to wait too long, either. He had plans.

One final worry: Sonny’s psychological state. He had made an unsuccessful suicide attempt. That was no small deal. Sonny was a fighter. A winner. He did not give up. He did not give in. But this time… Something in Sonny had broken. He had seen it and he felt horribly responsible for it. So he wasn’t completely sure what he would be facing once he came face to face with him.

Vinnie made copies of the medical reports and pocketed them to study later. He wanted to make sure he did everything he could to give him what he needed. That might mean stocking up on some bizarre meds he’d never even heard of. It might also mean learning to insert an I.V.

But first he had a whole mess of other things to work out. Sonny’s condition gave him time.

*

I remember the exact moment Vinnie stopped loving me.

It wasn’t when we fought so long, so hard. No. That was pure emotion, true passion. We fought with our hearts. We fought with a pain perhaps only lovers might know.

We weren’t lovers, though. Not yet, at least. Neither of us had allowed it to go that far. But it wasn’t for lack of heat. No siree.

Between us was this force we couldn’t name. We were both aware of it. It made us grin often, lean into each other. I could look at Vinnie and he’d stare back and minutes would pass like seconds. The world would disappear until all that was left were extreme blue eyes and my pounding heart.

What did we do about that nameless, time-warping force? Go out and get drunk, tease girls, or spend the evening exhausting ourselves at the gym with handball, weight-lifting, swimming.

We’d go to bed in separate rooms of course, but always wake early, ready to start the day over again together. He was the first person I sought every morning. We always went for breakfast. Then lunch. Then dinner.

You can’t spend that much time with someone, even if you ended up sleeping alone each night, and deny you were having a relationship. “Affair” might’ve been a better word. We were having an affair.

And yet…we weren’t.

Staid, heterosexual guys just don’t have affairs. Not with each other. They certainly don’t want each other even if their bodies instantly heat on contact. And most importantly, they never, ever fall in love.

After we fought in the Rialto, after we talked, I asked Vinnie how he’d remember me.

He did not answer.

That odd silence of his broke something inside me. That force between us just ruptured full on. I could feel it happening, my insides turning sharp and hot, a fluttering like desperation in my lungs.

After the music finished, somehow, some way I found the strength to get up, go to him. I sat down beside him leaning against the wall and took his hand.

My voice sounded raspy when I spoke. “I don’t want you to remember me fighting you.”

He looked at me with those sea-wreck eyes of his, and when he did I leaned forward, hand still clutching his, and kissed him. Soft. Putting one hand up to his bruised face, fingers feeling for the silkiness of his hair. He inhaled sharply when I pulled away. His body shook.

Then I got up and walked out.

God damn him for following me.

Up until that point, Vinnie still loved me.

The moment he stopped was when those men—his men—came through the door.

I remember his expression changed. I remember thinking, “It is over,” and looking at him, seeing his torn face, watching him give up, give in.

It was all over then.

That moment he stopped loving me.

*

Vinnie’s home base was the safe house. But they couldn’t keep him there all day. He was allowed out to do chores, errands. He had gotten his car which finally gave him the freedom he needed to put some things into motion.

Without telling Frank or anyone else at the OCB, Vinnie went back to the Royal Diamond. Over a week had passed. There were some surprised faces but no one said a word to him. The coldness on his face shut them up right away. He was looked up to there, respected. No one stopped him from going into Sonny’s office, or even into Sonny’s private penthouse on the top floor. Everyone let him pass. No one asked him if he still intended to live in his own private suite.

Still, he did make a quiet excuse to Sonny’s guards when he left with three duffel bags, two filled with some of Sonny’s stuff, one filled with his own. “Sonny needs some things at the hospital for his recovery.”

Just nods. No one asked how Sonny was. No one. They were all either too scared, or perhaps they just knew he was never getting out, never coming back.

The managers still worked to keep the businesses afloat. Vinnie wondered how long that might last. Once Sonny was formally arrested, the Feds would seize the casino anyway.

He did not go to see Sonny even though it would have been easy enough for him to do so in secret. First off, he had orders not to, not that he was being obedient or anything. But he didn’t want to alert anybody that he wasn’t, or do anything that, if he were caught, would get people to notice him more. He wanted to appear as if everything was okay.

For now, seeing Sonny was off-limits.

Frank came by the safe house once a day at first, then less. He told Vinnie he needed to find his own place within a month.

Vinnie courteously agreed. “I might stay with my mom for awhile,” he lied. He had no intention of seeing his mother.

More free reign allowed Vinnie to go away for a couple days. He went north. And he didn’t tell anybody where he’d be.

When he returned, satisfied with everything he’d accomplished, he arrived at the safe house to a blinking answering machine. Frank. More Frank.

He called him.

“Where have you been?”

“Just out,” Vinnie said.

“Well, Lifeguard and I get worried when you don’t check in.”

“I’m not on a job anymore.”

“I know you’re not, but in a sense you still are. You’re still undercover.”

“I was looking for a place,” Vinnie offered.

“Well hell. Good for you. How’s everything else?” The unspoken question was really, ‘How are you dealing?’

“Just fine,” Vinnie replied.

“You haven’t asked…about him.”

“He’s still in the hospital, right?”

“Yep. He had surgery last Friday.”

“How’d it go?” Vinnie asked. But he already knew. He’d been to the OCB computers right before he left. This was just chit-chat. Sonny was doing okay but he still had little use of his right hand. Physical therapy had already started.

“He’s recovering… It’s actually remarkable. I still don’t want you to see him, Vince. It’s not good for you. You need a clean break.”

“Yeah, Frank. Yeah.”

“You want to grab dinner later?”

Frank would want to talk. He’d probe Vinnie with questions he did not want to answer anymore. “Apartment hunting is exhausting. I think I’ll stay in tonight, hit the sack early.”

Frank seemed to hesitate. Vinnie could hear possible mistrust in the silence over the phone. Finally he said, “All right. I’ll be over tomorrow, though.”

“Sure, Frank. G’night.”

*

Keeping busy was good for Vinnie. But nights were the hardest. He’d stopped crying himself to sleep after the first week, but he still tossed and turned, had nightmares. Obsession with his wacky plan had him staring at the ceiling sometimes until 3 A.M.

Frank kept wanting to talk to him about “the future.”

“When Sonny is fit to be indicted and stand trial, the OCB has enough evidence to convict without your testimony, but you can be sure his lawyers will subpoena you. You can’t keep your cover forever, Vince.”

Vince asked once, “They could make a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Like not go for special circumstances. Sonny pleads guilty to first degree manslaughter, ten years with time off for good behavior…that kind of deal!”

“You know they won’t want to do that.”

“Frank, Patrice was going to kill Sonny! What was he supposed to do?”

Frank looked at him like he was the crazy one. “Maybe not be a mobster in the first place?”

Vinnie sighed.

Frank started to say, “I know you got close to him…”

But Vinnie interrupted. “Just quit saying that! Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because I know how upset you are.”

“But that’s just it. You don’t know, Frank. No one knows.”

“How’s the group therapy going?”

Vinnie hung his head and didn’t look at him. The bureau had practically forced Vinnie to attend bi-weekly group therapy talk sessions that, instead of helping, seemed to further fuck up the already fucked up participants. He went. He listened. But he never talked about himself there. “Yeah, that’s just fine. Fine.” It was a load of crap, really. One guy in the group had already killed himself during the time Vinnie was there and he’d actually had the thought that under the title “Vincent Terranova’s Life” should be a flashing neon sub-heading that read: “Arranger of Beautiful Suicides.” Yeah, it was really working out just peachy.

Conversations like these made Vinnie waffle less about his plan until finally he had started to put things into motion. That was the only thing that made him feel better. Moving forward. Making his own decisions. Making his own life for a change.

One day, a couple weeks later, out of the blue Frank said, “Maybe I could arrange it so you could see Sonny.”

Vince thought ‘yes’ at first, then ‘no’. For his own sake he’d been aching to see the man. He wanted to see him face to face, make Sonny’s recovery true in his mind, touch him to make sure he was real, tell him…tell him…what did he want to tell him?

But for Sonny’s sake he would not go to the hospital until he was completely ready to commit to his plan. He didn’t want Sonny agitated, or thinking too much. He didn’t want to face that maybe Sonny wouldn’t even want to see him, let alone talk to him.

No, he needed to see Sonny on his terms, when he was ready to move fast, everything in place, everything organized and by the book and unquestioned. He needed Sonny complacent, still thinking Vinnie was just doing his job…or Sonny might blow the whole deal.

Vinnie tried to veer away from Frank’s offer, saying, “What makes you think he wants to see me?”

Frank moved closer to him then, which was strange. Vinnie looked down at him wondering if Frank was actually going to touch him. He frowned.

Frank didn’t touch him, but he said very quietly, “I heard from Pruitt who’s on duty over there that sometimes he…he…”

“He…what? Frank?”

“He asks for you.”

Vinnie felt a clenching in his chest. ‘Not true!’ his mind denied. Sonny wouldn’t…just wouldn’t. He repeated what Frank said in a question. “He asks for me?”

“Well, more like he calls for you. Pruitt says Sonny doesn’t make a lot of sense sometimes. He’s drugged up.”

“Yeah, you’d be delirious, too, Frank, if you grabbed a thousand volts. Believe me, Sonny doesn’t want to see me.” It hurt to say it. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. But the words were in the air now in his own voice like a statement of fact.

“I didn’t think that mattered to you. I thought you wanted to see him.”

Vinnie shrugged, and suddenly the living room seemed all too stuffy and stifling.

“What really happened between you guys locked up for all that time in that theatre?”

“We practically killed each other. That’s what happened,” Vinnie quipped. Was the air leaking out? He needed to breathe. Needed to get out. But he stood in the room while Frank looked him over, assessing his words.

“You were so adamant about seeing him at first…,” Frank accused.

“I thought he was dying. He was dying.”

He heard Frank take a deep breath. “Okay, then. Have it your way, kid.”

*

I woke in a tangle of tubes and wires. I could not move.

When they took out the breathing tube, I asked, “Was I in an accident?”

The reply came. “Electric shock.”

That made no sense.

So I made a story for myself that I’d been hit by a car. I didn’t know where or when, but at least it made sense. And I actually did feel like I’d been hit by a car. Or a semi. Or a train.

Everything hurt. My body burned. It shook uncontrollably and often.

There were bright lights, humming machines all around me, and things that pinched and hurt me. I guess I struggled for awhile because voices kept telling me, “Stop. You need to relax. Rest.”

My muscles kept tensing up, though, not of my will, and they gave me stuff for the pain.

My right hand hurt the most. It was whitely, thickly wrapped.

A few times over the days someone said to me, “Who’s Vinnie?”

Confused, because I didn’t remember talking, and most especially not about him, I said, “No one.”

I knew he wasn’t around. If he’d been around I’d have felt him.

There were police at the door but not Vinnie. They were like the ones who were coming through the Rialto’s doors. They were there to arrest me, I supposed, if or when I ever got better. Sometimes I heard the pounding at the door, loud, crashing. I’d jump awake. “Make them stop that noise,” I said once to one of the nurses. Her reply: “What noise?”

My misery was like a cage and I escaped within the dreamy stupor of prescribed pharmaceuticals.

Once again the haze diminished a bit and a friendly girl leaned over me, smiling. “Who’s Vinnie?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you keep calling for him,” she said as she adjusted my I.V.

“I do not!” I argued. Why was I so pissed off? But her words…they made me feel worse even than the pain in my hand.

She patted my shoulder.

I thought about it, though. Why would I call for him? He was done with me.

It was over between us.

Besides, where I was headed he was not going to follow.

Every smell in intensive care seemed rancid to me. I got sick of it. When I complained too much or tried to leave, they fought me back and won with more drugs.

I had weird dreams. Not just the pounding on the door dreams, but others.

In one of my dreams the phone rang by my hospital bed. My left hand wasn’t burnt or wrapped, so I picked up the receiver and held it to my right ear. It was Vinnie and he was talking, saying over and over, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to die.”

I said, “Well, Vinnie, what other outcome are you looking for when you destroy someone’s life?”

Another one I remember had me and Vinnie standing at the top of a lighthouse watching a black and angry sea overtake the land. Water crashed around us, surrounded us. There was no place to go.

Vinnie, wearing a full white tuxedo, turned toward me and said, “I’ll remember you forever.”

I could only stare at him, knowing we were going to die. The lighthouse had been part of some elaborate plan I could no longer remember. I had no reply.

*

It goes like this, my day: Breakfast. I can curl my right fingers around a spoon now. Eating with my left hand had actually been hazardous, food went everywhere. (I don’t know how Vinnie does it, being left-handed. It’s just wrong.) But now, even with still very little muscle control, my right hand is doing a much better job of actually getting food into my mouth.

Then a nice drifty morning until my physical therapy. I comply with it because I don’t want to talk, or argue, or fight anymore. The guy who always comes except on Saturday and Sunday is named Cory and he’s very young and he smiles way too much. But he has me walking and eating, at least, even if I’m slow. When I am at my most coherent, I find myself wondering if these people taking care of me think they are wasting their time. Here they are, cheery and helpful, all to get me ready for what? Prison? The gurney and the needle? I think they’re all insane.

Then lunch. I am somewhat glad to be off my liquid diet, even if I still feel little appetite.

Afternoons seem endless. There is no break up of time there. No one visits. No Vinnie. And I haven’t even heard from Theresa. I have no more therapy or interruptions. I don’t turn on the TV but the nurse always does, no matter which nurse it is. As if they can’t stand silence. Or think I can’t.

I am not a fan of game shows or soap operas but I have their theme songs memorized now. They play in my mind until I want to gouge my brains out. So I think of other songs to play in my head, anything to distract me from daytime TV songfests.

The one going through my head now goes like this: Well, you’ve got your diamonds and you’ve got your pretty clothes, and the chauffeur drives your cars, you let everybody know, but don’t play with me ‘cause you’re playing with fire…

My eyes close, the TV is turned low. I don’t realize I am doing this out loud, but a nurse comes in and says, “Oh, Rolling Stones!”

I open my eyes, say nothing.

She looks at me for a moment, sighs. “You have a nice voice.”

Sometimes, for a treat, I ask for a Coke. Even if it’s not on the menu, they always bring me one.

Next on the routine: dinner. I always check the box for fruit and sometimes if I am lucky it is not canned but fresh. Today it’s fresh. I eat it first.

I always save the paper for after dinner. If they forget to bring one in the mornings, I ask for it. I like to read myself to sleep. It distracts me. But I still have dreams.

…don’t play with me ‘cause you’re playing with fire…

All in all, I think the events of my new life are just too incredible for words. Lucky me.

*

Vinnie said good bye to Frank and hung up the phone. He turned on the game. Then he waited.

At twenty past eleven, while the news was still droning, Vinnie took a shower and changed into his nicest dark blue suit. He took his time, then looked at himself in the mirror. No scars showed from the fight. He’d been banged up good, but he’d healed well in the past month. In his reflection he checked his OCB badge which hung from the suit lapel on a clip. He checked his pockets. Twice. More official I.D.

He went into the living room. He had his briefcase open and on the coffee table. He went through it three times, after already having gone through it three times that afternoon. He was smart and thorough. Everything was in order. He even had authentic, correct signatures. He was that good.

He stepped outside onto the porch of the safe house. A shock.

Getting toward the end of October now, and the air was still and cold. The weather called for snow to the north.

It worried him.

He gripped the briefcase in his right hand, locked and closed the door with his left. Then he bent and left the key under the mat.

His car had been packed for days. In the trunk were the duffels. And extra food. And two flats of bottled water, the best kind of water which had gone through some kind of osmosis treatment or something.

He got into the front seat and put the briefcase on the seat next to him but as he did his keys dropped on the pavement. Cursing under his breath, he leaned down to pick them up. Was he nervous? If so, he couldn’t afford to let it show. He had to keep hold of himself.

He lifted his key to the ignition switch, watching to see if his hand shook. He took a breath, tried to keep his hand as still as possible. He did not start the car until he was satisfied it wasn’t shaking any more.

Maybe it was all too easy, but shouldn’t it be? He’d planned and re-planned and over-planned every little detail.

It made sense to everybody he spoke to at the hospital that Sonny Steelgrave needed to be moved at night. Sonny was a special patient. Everyone knew he had enemies who might want him dead, or friends who might try anything to wrestle him out of his predicament. Moving at night was safest. Vinnie had all the forms in triplicate. Sonny was to be taken to OCB holding, to their own jail hospital where things were much more secure. Vincent Terranova was on orders to complete this job (he had more paperwork to show it, in triplicate) as swiftly and quietly as possible.

The nurses on duty were so nice, they even helped. They got him a wheelchair, a blanket. They got him two days worth of Sonny’s meds in advance, meds he already had ample supplies of. They even helped pack what little Sonny had accumulated while he was living there, a toothbrush, a comb, a razor. The tux Sonny had been wearing when he’d arrived at the hospital had, they said, been thrown away. Burnt, soiled…nothing could be done for it.

One of the nurses turned to him and said, “Oh, are you “the” Vinnie?”

Vinnie frowned at her, shook his head once. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He…he…,” she motioned toward Sonny’s room, “…says your name sometimes…”

Vinnie glanced at the guard, the other nurses, looking for suspicion in their faces. Luckily, they were barely paying attention. Vinnie said, “Well, we’ve met before.”

She just nodded.

The OCB guard at Sonny’s door did not know Vinnie on sight, but he acknowledged his I.D. and also helped once Vinnie told him he hadn’t been informed because moving Sonny was a top security clearance job, and no one was to know in advance except those directly involved. Agents were waiting to receive him and settle him in at the OCB holding tank. The guard bought it all without even blinking.

All this was accomplished outside Sonny’s room.

Now was the crowning moment. Vinnie swallowed hard, then opened the door and walked into the darkened area.

*

I feel something touch my shoulder. Again. I am in a long tunnel. Something is very funny but I can’t put my finger on it. I start to chuckle. That infernal song is going around and around in my head again. At least it isn’t the theme to “All My Children.”

“…don’t play with me cause you’re playing with fire…” I hear my voice. It sounds strained.

“Sonny, wake up.”

Still dreaming, I guess. Because Vinnie’s voice is…so close!

“Sonny!” Hand on my shoulder again. Gripping.

“Ouch!”

“C’mon. Wake up.”

“Why?” I don’t open my eyes. It’ll all go away when I do.

“Because it’s time to go.”

“Go where?”

“Just…go.”

The hand shakes me again. Feels so real. “You taking me somewhere?” I mumble. It’s so weird.

“Yes. C’mon. Can you sit up? Open your eyes?”

Then it occurs to me. Maybe I overslept my breakfast. “Is it morning? Cory?”

“It’s Vinnie. Open your eyes.” Then the voice goes real soft and whispery, surprising me. “C’mon, pal.”

And I feel the heat. That heat. Unmistakable. The force that makes me feel like I’m breaking inside all the time. Vinnie’s hand is on my shoulder, firm, but also something else. He’s shaking a little. He’s leaning into my shoulder and something feels urgent and too close and too off. Well, if it is a dream…

I open my eyes.

He’s standing right there. Not Cory. Not a nurse. Vinnie. And he’s leaning over me now, pulling me as if he wants me to sit up. “Hey!” It comes out harsh…and shaky. “Wha…?”

Everything is dark except for a low gold light by the doorway. And the door is a little ajar so that I can see the hall light seeping in, and hear the sounds of people moving quietly about, and my neighbor in the next room incessantly coughing.

“C’mon Sonny. We gotta get you up. I gotta chair here.”

I look and see he really does. A wheelchair is right beside him, and there’s a pillow in the seat and it looks all comfy and sweet. And so utterly, strangely weird. “Are you outta your mind?” I say. “What are you do…? Why? …it’s the middle of the night!”

“I know. We’re moving you.” And out come the handcuffs.

I gulp back my shock. So this is it. I’m well enough now, I guess. Fit enough to be arrested. But Vinnie? Arresting me? Why him? And a voice quips in my head ‘The gods have a sense of humor.’ Oh yeah. That.

I stare at the cuffs unable to see anything else for a long time. They glint and glow, silver, hard, cold. Then I look up. I can’t breathe. Vinnie is standing there in a fucking suit I bought him looking like…like a fucking angel… It’s so wrong, so incredibly disastrous. This turn. This man. Standing there. Ready to take me in. I see the OCB badge. I see his thick gelled hair, his stoic face, his lowered blue eyes. And the cuffs. “Are you arresting me now?” I cannot believe how that comes out. My voice is…almost gone. I breath in, shuddering, trying to look away.

Then he does something really strange. He reaches out. He gently touches the side of my face. Then he abruptly looks behind him. Seeing no one, he leans down and kisses me on the forehead. It’s fast. It’s warm. It’s soft. He straightens too quickly, catching his breath, and says, “Hold out your hands.”

It’s all so surreal, my brain boggles. “Why?” But I do it anyway, unable to see anything now, everything a blur. I feel the cold cuffs go on. I have no time to process any of this. And that kiss… Is he trying to drive me crazier? Is this some bizarre plan? An OCB plot to catch me yet again unawares, using Vinnie’s wiles and Vinnie’s sweet looks to nab me at something, anything…but what? I’ve been lying here in a hospital bed for god knows how long doing nothing. Nothing.

“You’re being moved,” he says, hushed and low. “So just shut up, okay?”

“No. I don’t have to go quietly you fucking bastard.” I’m proud to hear my voice come out steadier, but there’s still a hint of panic.

“Just shut up.” His voice is still low. “Sonny. Please.” He touches my hand. “For me.”

“Fuck ‘for you.’”

“You can yell at me later,” he says.

“What? In court?” I’m shaking again.

“Shhh!”

He helps me out of the bed. What other choice do I really have? “I don’t have any clothes.”

“You don’t need them right now.” He adjusts my gown, which actually makes me feel kinda fuzzy inside which pisses me off even more. He pulls me up. I stand okay. It doesn’t hurt, I’m just weak. Then he helps me sit in the chair. He reaches for a blanket at the foot of the bed, shakes it out. Before he covers me, he looks down at me. “You look…thin,” he comments.

“Yeah? Well fuck you in your two thousand dollar suit I bought you.” As I bitch, he tucks the blanket in around me.

My two night nurses are standing there as Vinnie wheels me out. And the OCB guard looks on as if it’s all just in a day’s work which I guess for him it probably is. One of the nurses hands Vinnie a plastic bag of stuff. He sets it in my lap. None of them say a word as Vinnie rolls me right past reception and to the elevator.

“Isn’t there paperwork or something?” I ask.

“Done. All done,” he replies.

I glance around. Everything seems really weird, but then I remind myself it is the middle of the night. “Where are the others?”

“What others?” The elevator doors open.

“Your guys? All your fucking red, white and blue guys.”

“Just shut up.” He wheels me in and pushes the button for the ground floor.

“So why is it you?”

“Why me what?”

“You arresting me? Why you?”

He doesn’t answer.

There’s a desperate clench in my chest I try to quell. “Vinnie, fucking…why?”

“Could you just shut up for one second?” The elevator doors open. He pushes me past the guard check-in station where the guard doesn’t even look up and again no one is waiting and out we go through the sliding double glass doors. There’s an ugly old car sitting right there parked in “yellow” and waiting for us. It’s blue and, well, that’s about all I can say about it.

“What the fuck is this? Where’s the police parade?”

“Don’t need one,” Vinnie says. “Don’t wanna draw attention. You’re a target, you know.”

So a middle of the night secret move. That’s his M.O. And no one will ever know. No one will be able to help. Soon I’ll be under the OCB roof awaiting trial and not even my lawyer will be able to budge me out of there. I just know it.

And that kiss he gave me? What is that about? He wants me to think…what?.. that it’s all for good? That he’s doing the right thing? A sort of statement like: I don’t hold anything you’ve done against you personally, but I’m sorry you have to die now.

“What you’re doing sucks, Vincenzo,” I mutter.

Not bothering to argue with me, Vinnie opens the passenger door. In the back seat are pillows and blankets. I realize it’s fucking freezing out here. I’m starting my shaking again. That shaking I can’t control. But he seems prepared for it. “C’mon. Get up. Get in.”

I push myself up with his help. He’s strong. He puts his warm arms underneath my shoulders and lifts. I lean into him even though I don’t want to and he smells like…like Vinnie, soapy and smooth and sweet. Beneath the shaking from the cold it makes my body warm, and there’s that start of a tingle I make damn sure to ignore. I always liked being close to him but I never did anything more. Yeah, it’s a good thing, too.

He easily moves me into the car as if I weigh about as much as a bag of feathers. He pushes me back, puts the pillows under my head, then shakes out each blanket and covers me. Three times. Well, he’s concerned about keeping me warm anyway.

“Okay,” he says, “pull your feet in.”

Still frowning, I comply. He shuts the door.

*

Vinnie left the wheelchair sitting by the curb, jogged around the front of his car and got in. He started the engine, glanced in the rearview to see that Sonny still lay back there…just making sure it was all real, then pulled away. They were on the street in seconds.

It worried him that Sonny had started shaking so badly. If the cold could get to him so quickly, that could mean a setback. He wanted everything perfect. He reached out and turned up the heat in the front. He was sweating from nerves, but he didn’t care. Sonny was what mattered.

He glanced in the mirror again. Sonny was looking right at him, brown eyes wide, awake, wary. “Vinnie….” The voice was a raspy whisper.

Vinnie gulped to hear him.

“Vinnie…,” he said again.

“Yeah?”

“Fuck you, I didn’t want it to be you.”

“Me?”

Sonny’s voice got louder, and was filled with some kind of tone like despair, frustration. “Is this some kind of macabre joke? I didn’t want you to be the one to take me in, dammit!”

“Shh…”

“Not you!” He took a heavy breath. “Hell. Fuck.” It almost sounded like he was trying not to sob. “Not you…”

Vinnie sighed heavily. Turned down a dark road, parked by some trees.

Sonny frowned when Vinnie looked in the mirror. “What…?”

Vinnie got out of the car, came around and opened the door. He leaned in, then. “Give me your hands.”

Sonny didn’t move.

“C’mon. It’s freezing! Just…”

Sonny lifted his cuffed hands out from under the blankets. The right one was wrapped, covered with a tight, half-glove. Both hands were shaking. Vinnie took a key and unlocked the cuffs. He threw them over his shoulder. They rattled against the pavement until they were still. He stared at Sonny, watching his reaction.

The brown eyes flickered, looking up in confusion, then settled into a more questioning gaze.

Sonny just stared at him. Vinnie felt his eyes heat. “I’m not taking you in.”

“But…”

“Just….” He swallowed hard. “You’re just going with me, okay?” He felt tears on his cheeks, ignored them. He reached out to Sonny’s blanket, pulling it tighter. “You warm enough?”

Sonny was looking at him so strangely now. “Vinnie? Fuck. Vinnie?”

“You okay?” Vinnie asked, ignoring the unspoken demand for explanations. “Huh? Cause it’s a sorta long drive.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m just…” He swiped his arm across his face. “I’m just…taking you.”

*

“I’m just…taking you,” he says. And well, hell, those look like real tears but with him, professional liar extraordinaire, who can know? Then he slams the door, gets back into the driver’s seat and we take off.

I try to sit up. It’s hard because my hand is so sensitive, almost useless. But I push with my feet and my left hand and get myself more upright. “Vinnie.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Vinnie!”

“What?”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

No response.

“Are you kidnapping me?”

I hear him puff air out his lungs. “Would you rather stay on Death Row?”

“But I….” I have no voice. Then I think: What is he doing? He could die for this. I manage to get out two words. “You can’t.”

“Can’t what?” he asks tightly.

“Do this.” I am shaking again. “What about your career? Vinnie, what if we’re caught? Have you lost your mind?” And all the while there’s this inner voice saying, ‘Vinnie came for you. For you! He’s saving you. He’s protecting you. He’s rescuing you!’ And there’s this warm kind of response in my stomach, panic and affection and dismay and disbelief and hope…

“We’re not gonna get caught. I made sure.”

“You made sure? What’d you do? Blow up the OCB?”

“Naw. I just know my way around.”

“You’re that sure of yourself?”

“Sonny, I’m taking you away from an insane nightmare. Why aren’t you glad?”

That makes my mouth drop a little. “Well, for one thing I haven’t decided if you’re a complete raving lunatic or if you’re just totally dumb. Either way, babe, you gotta know this is nuts.” Now I’m starting to think it’s all extremely funny. Hilarious. And so very very untrue because any minute now I’m gonna wake up and it’s gonna be all nurses and therapy and daytime TV on the road to penitentiary Hell.

Vinnie says, “Nuts? Yeah, maybe, but it’s the first time I’ve felt good in a long time.” He gives a crazy, little laugh.

Bingo. Raving loon.

Then he says, “You want me to turn around, Sonny? Go back?”

“Well, at this point, not really.” 

“Thought so.”

As it all slowly settles, and I’m still not waking up, I start thinking, ‘But now what?’

“So, then, you gonna drive a few hours, drop me off at a bus station or something?”

“Right. That’s the plan.”

“Fantastic. I forgot my slippers. I’ll need slippers, ya know, to go with the gown.”

“I’ve taken care of all that,” he says quietly.

“Oh yeah? Everything?”

“Everything.” The tone is very final, comes out almost like a sigh.

Strangely, I believe him, and I don’t realize how knotted my stomach has become until it abruptly relaxes.

Vinnie taking care of everything? Vinnie taking me away? It’s surreal. It makes me feel unwhole, strange. I’m used to controlling my life and all the details, down to the cufflinks on my sleeves. But now I’m a ghost. Vinnie is the only one who sees me now. It’s disorienting. Like I’m dead, he’s responsible and now I’m stuck with him. But there’s that voice in back of my mind. ‘You’d rather be strapped down? Fed poison? Or spend the rest of your life behind bars?’

Vinnie stops at a gas station once, waking me. I had not realized I’d dozed off. He brings me a Coke. He asks me if I’m hungry.

“They’ll be looking, ya know,” I say, ignoring his question. “When they find I’m missing and you’re missing, this car…”

“New license plates,” he replies.

“How’d you do that? It’d still be traced…”

“Nope. Don’t ask. Besides, you should know how…”

“Guys did that stuff for me. I never asked how,” I reply.

We get fast food and he hands me a burger. It makes me sick. We stop at the side of the road until I’m done. I’m hunched, huddled in my blanket, throwing up in the freezing night with a sky above threatening snow and Vinnie keeps saying, “Damn, damn,” as he paces behind me. I retch again, feel his hands on my shoulders gentle, soothing. The trees before me whisper and sway in an arctic breeze. I don’t think it’s the burger. I think it’s nerves. I’m off my schedule. It should be almost breakfast time, not dinner and not this late. And I was getting carsick lying there with my eyes closed and him driving these windy-ass roads.

“It’s not the end of the world,” I mutter as he hands me some wet wipes. Wet wipes? He does come prepared.

“I didn’t think you were too sick to be moved…”

“I’m not!” My voice is raised a bit. “I’m car sick. Can I please sit up front with you?”

“But internal damage…still unknown…there could be consequences.”

“I’m fine!” I snap. “I didn’t want to stay one more day in that place anyway.”

He eyes me, opens the front passenger door for me, helps me in. I can walk, dammit, but I’m still so weak. Even though I am sitting up, he still grabs the extra blankets and tucks me in like I’m some sick child. I push the blankets away, along with his hand. “Vinnie, stop!”

He sets my Coke in the cup holder sticking in the window. I’m grateful for it. It actually settles my stomach. We start up and we’re on the way again. I lean my head back on the seat and take a couple of deep breaths.

“Tell me if you need to stop again.”

“Yeh. Fuck that, it’s freezing out there.”

So here I am, running from the Feds now, one of those Feds on my left, and a huge frozen wilderness to my right. I’m in a shitty, chemical-smelling hospital gown, nothing but socks on my feet, and wrapped in a blanket. I can barely walk. My hand still hurts. I’ve just thrown up my pre-breakfast meal. This is my life now.

But when I look over at Vinnie, his steely concentration, hands firm on the wheel, bangs scuffed forward on his forehead, my heart catches. Even in the dark, in profile, he’s beautiful…but it’s not just that. He has a heart I’ve never seen in anyone else I’ve known. He’s so smart, so strong, but he’s not suited to his job. I’m exhibit A, the main proof. He was supposed to take me. Take me down. Arrest me. Do his job. So we got close. So what?

But I think about the things he would do for me without even being asked even before I suspected anything about him, how sweet he was to the girls, how fair and soft-spoken he was to the guys he worked with at Terranova Marine, how enthusiastic he was to join me in any plan. We had good times. Those couldn’t be completely faked by him. He looked out for people. He exposed Tony for a fraud even after so many years of loyalty to my brother Dave. It was his job, yes, but it seemed like he was such a godsend at the time.

Now, after everything, why save me? But that’s the way his heart works, I guess. I thought it was fake, that heartfelt loyalty, that friendship. I thought everything was a lie when I finally learned he was a cop, when we fought. And when those men came through the door…it…broke me. I thought he didn’t love me anymore. But when I woke and looked up at him from my hospital bed tonight I saw in his eyes that he couldn’t destroy me. Couldn’t leave me. Couldn’t let go. It’s retrospect now, of course, but it was there. Deep down I knew.

I thought he was moving me to OCB, and yes, arresting me, but there was something desperate and edgy in his look. Then he kissed my forehead. I damn him for making my head spin until I can’t think right. I hated him; because if he was just rubbing it in, making it harder, teasing me, then I had read him so very very wrongly.

And now here we are. Even if I deserved it, he was never going to arrest me. Never.

No one I’ve ever known has done the things for me Vinnie has. And now this. This is so much. This is the end of his world. No small task. He makes me crazy. Thinking about it I get mad or sad or something. My throat tightens. Vinnie does that to me. And now…

“You’re an idiot you know,” I whisper under my breath.

He glances at me a second, then back at the road.

“You’re throwing everything away.” My voice sounds strange.

He says nothing.

“For me. Why?”

He swallows, grips the wheel harder. “I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Huh?”

“Death Row, Sonny. Most people wouldn’t, but I had the means to take you away from that, so I did.”

“Even if I deserved it?”

“You didn’t. You don’t.”

“That’s not how you came across fighting me. Take the consequences of your actions…that’s what you seemed to be teaching me that night.” That night. We both know what it refers to. I don’t need to spell it out.

”No. Yes.” He shudders a little, runs his hand through his bangs. “I meant that you can’t just run over people because you…you’re bigger or smarter. But on that tape you were defending yourself…but that’s not how it was going to play no matter what I said or did. Courts aren’t fair even if people believe they are.”

I think about that for a second. “Funny, coming from you.”

“Yeah.” His voice shakes from a laugh or maybe something else. “I used to believe in good and evil.”

“Used to?”

“It’s all mixed up, not one way or the other. You’re not the demon everybody wanted me to believe you were.”

“Maybe you’re deluded.”

“No. I’m not. Maybe you are. About yourself.”

“Maybe I liked what I did. Maybe I went too far, but maybe I’d do it again. You gambled everything on me.”

He sighs. “What can I say? I like high risk.”

“Yeah, we had high times. But now…who are we? And what if we don’t like each other when we get there?”

“Sonny, I’m not taking you prisoner. You have free will. You can do anything you want. But I’m setting it up to start over. I’m changing the game. I had a way to do that so I took it. I don’t want to live the rest of my life in regret.”

“You still might.”

He nods tightly. “Yeah, but I just couldn’t…” He gulps.

“Couldn’t what?”

“Leave you,” he whispers.

Something in my chest lurches. My left fist grips my blanket. I stare at the dark road ahead. Good and evil. Mixing it up. Fuck, Vinnie mixes me up. That’s his heart. It’s so beautiful. God help me.

I’m waxing poetic again. Maybe it’s the drugs. Maybe it’s him. Whatever, I think we’re both outta our minds. What a match we make. A match made in some invisible landscape we can’t see or define or talk about. But it must be real. All too real. Or we wouldn’t have done the dumb things we have.

Yeah, Vinnie’s just “taking me.” How smart is that? And, well, look at me. I’m going with him. A ghost. A former mobster (what am I now?) A criminal on the run. I can barely walk. I can barely feed myself. As of a couple hours ago I was still on an I.V. Yeah, so smart.

“Vinnie, what about money?”

“I’ve taken care of everything,” Vinnie says quietly, not taking his eyes off the road.

He keeps saying that. He’s taken care of everything. He’s taking care of me. Really taking care. It feels weird. But he’s always been like that, making sure everything is right. Even before, when I thought he was like me, not a cop, he did that. He took care of people. He took the time. He noticed details.

It feels weird. Putting myself in his hands like this. But the rational part of me knows he can do it. He’s that smart. He’s got contacts. I should trust him. Trust him.

“I have money,” I say.

“I know.”

“What do you mean you know?”

“I just…do.”

“From the OCB files?”

“That…and I’m a good spy.”

“But…”

“It’s taken care of.”

“How?”

“You want details? I couldn’t access all your holdings, but you’ll have enough under your new I.D.”

“New I.D?”

“We can’t go around under our old names.”

“Of course not!”

“Okay then.”

“So you stole my money?”

Now he looks over at me frowning. “Stole?” He shakes his head.

“Yeah. As in ‘took.’ Like you’re ‘taking’ me.”

“It’s your money.”

I blink rapidly, sigh in frustration.

“And I didn’t take all of it.” He frowns. “Sorry, but I couldn’t get to all of it in the time I had.”

I just shake my head. “You’re sorry because you couldn’t get all my money?”

“Yeah. I mean…for you.”

“Vinnie, that is the least of our worries!”

“I told you I have everything covered. Trust me.”

Trust. Him. After everything, he asks for this. “There’ll be a manhunt. Are we going far enough?”

“I have a place we can hole up for awhile. Until things ease up. Then we can go anywhere, wherever you want.”

“It’ll be on the news, people looking.”

“People forget after awhile. People don’t pay attention. They’re lousy witnesses.”

As he says that, I look up and see we are approaching a well lit small building that looks like it’s blocking the road. Then, with some alarm, I realize it is the Canadian border.

Vinnie drives right up without preamble, reaching into his jacket pocket as he rolls down the window. He has papers, passports…something in his hand. He is about to brake when the uniformed customs officer simply waves us on. We don’t even stop.

“Fucking Canada,” I mutter.

He turns, eyebrows raised as if in innocence, and says quietly, like he’s trying not to accuse me of anything, “You love Canada.”

It’s true. But how does Vinnie know this? We’ve never been here together. I’ve vacationed here and enjoyed it but I don’t remember talking to him about any of that. “You get that from OCB files?”

He shrugs. “I just…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. Now he’s got me wondering what else is in those files. Files he’s had full access to. Stuff about me. Stuff maybe I don’t even know about my own self. I let out a short laugh. There could be facts in those files that’re just completely wrong.

“Does it say in there my favorite color? Or the size of my shorts? Or that I’m allergic to strawberries?”

“You’re not allergic to strawberries,” he argues.

“I know. Just wondering.”

“Your OCB file is…well…incomplete.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“For one thing…,” he clears his throat. “You’re nothing like your file led me to believe at first.”

“I’m not?”

He takes a deep breath. “No. You’re not.”

“Oh, you mean the stuff about me having horns, a pitchfork and a pointy tail?”

“Something like that.” He smiles.

But I’m remembering now when he said to me in the Rialto, so firmly, so passionately, ‘I saw you garrote a man in my face.’ The intensity of his ideals concerning right and wrong were not under question in that moment. But now? “I killed Paul.”

He does not reply but I see his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. Outside the road is moving under us like a black tape. Trees try to block the stars. Tiny crystals of snow are starting to fall and dot the windshield.

“So,” I say, watching the snowdrops glimmer in the headlights. “How does that look in my file?”

He says nothing.

“Well? It is murder.”

“He was the monster.”

“Some say I am…”

Vinnie puts a hand against his forehead, rubs. “I can’t judge you anymore, Sonny.”

“Judge me? From the beginning you were…”

He interrupts, almost harsh. “Don’t make me. Not anymore. I can’t! I can’t…” He rubs at his face.

“You cannot deny who you’re running away with, Vinnie.”

“After everything, I know very well.”

He knows what? Me? Maybe. But sometimes I don’t even know myself. Trust Vinnie to think he knows it all. Smart Vinnie. What does he see?

What does he see?

I rub my eyes with my left hand. I’m so tired. The hospital. Carsickness. The long drive. I am wrung out. I am a ghost.

We drive many miles in silence.

I can justify my killing of Paul Patrice. I lose no sleep over it. And maybe Vinnie can justify it, too. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m a warrior. But then so is Vinnie. He’s trained. I’m trained. Just from different parts of the whole picture. Both of us have killed.

Well, we have that in common. But…I am the bad guy. How does that fit with him? I don’t feel guilty or wrong. Is that bad? Is that wrong in itself? But here’s what I do feel. With him there is something more. When I am around him an energy seeps into me. I feel more than the sum of ‘just me.’ The world opens up around Vinnie when I look at him, and my world merges with it, with some part of his world, some part of him. I feel that. I know it like the air I breathe. Vinnie is like a part of me. A part of me I am missing, or have lost, misplaced, left behind. All I have to do is look into his eyes and I find it. A wordless something. A sensation. A luster. A living flame. Sometimes it feels like a deep breath held, trapped in my chest. Vinnie comes into me like that, visually, sensually. No, I don’t lose sleep over killing Paul. But I do lose sleep over Vinnie.

Who I am and who Vinnie thinks I am…are they the same?

Yeah, I’ve lost sleep over that question. And in the hospital there was the matter of believing I’d lost Vinnie’s love. That pain…and what happened after. It was no car accident like I told myself. I wished I’d been in a car accident. That would have been so much easier to handle.

I glance down at my gloved right hand. I don’t remember grabbing anything hot. I don’t remember going down. But I did it. There’s proof. Right there in the palm of my hand. That day I learned about all the lies, it was as if Vinnie had stolen my soul. Can anyone live that way? I couldn’t.

But now? Here he is driving me into some dark, mysterious future realm. I have no idea what will happen. I’m not in control. I have no power anymore. I’m just a guy in an ugly hospital smock waiting for his fate when it used to be I was the guy who made his own fate. Vinnie said to me once he believed in making his own luck. Is that what he’s doing now? Coming back for me like this…it’s crazy. But it’s everything I could desire. Everything I ever wanted. I don’t understand why…but I’ve never wanted anyone more. Or so badly.

I turn to look at him, at his profile in the dash light. My throat feels funny. But I keep staring at him. He’s aware. I know it. Finally he turns. “What?”

I swallow, mumble, “What do you mean ‘what’?”

His smile seems almost sad. “You’ve been giving me that look since I met you.”

I start to shake my head.

He adds softly, “That’s not in your file.”

I close my eyes, lean my head back, and just let myself feel the car moving.

*

Vinnie felt his heart stop. That look. Sonny never did manage to hide his feelings too well. Crazy. Too vulnerable. How did he do that? Look at Vinnie so intently, so fully with his heart in his eyes? And he didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it.

Vinnie had had looks before. He attracted people. He knew it. He’d seen those looks. And he’d seen Sonny’s looks, too, at women, at guys who owed him money, at money itself. But those looks were gleeful or lascivious or greedy. That was never the way he looked at Vinnie, though.

After awhile, Vinnie realized he’d never had anyone look at him quite that way before. He’d never actually ‘felt’ it inside himself before, as if Sonny’s looks made a connection. So strong. Like a pull. A gravitational force that, when you yielded to it, felt almost like floating. He’d never felt this wanted by anyone. The fiery, burning, powerful, stunning essence that called itself Sonny Steelgrave had invaded him. There was nothing he could do about it. Certainly there was no stopping it. Past a certain point during his undercover job in the Steelgrave business, he had gone over to Sonny. He didn’t know when that was, the exact moment, the point of no return, but it had happened. He had tried to deny it. Even in the Rialto he’d thought if he played the cop part well enough he might have himself believing it again. But that was folly.

Sonny had gotten into him. Nothing to do but breathe through it. When Sonny was gone that new world without him became impossible.

He couldn’t explain these things to Sonny, but even now on this dark road driving into the unknown, he was satisfied with his decision to run away with Sonny. And then, just a moment ago, Sonny had given him that look again. And he knew Sonny understood. He wouldn’t have to explain it…didn’t have the words anyway. Maybe Sonny thought Vinnie was crazy, but he knew why Vinnie had done this. If he didn’t, then Vinnie had misread the entire thing wrong from the very beginning.

But he hadn’t misread. Sonny was with him. Sonny leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes and Vinnie could “feel” him accept the deal.

This was his Sonny, the friend, the one who was a part of him now; this version was not in the OCB files. The law didn’t care to know about this part…or take the time to find out. To the law it didn’t matter who you were, or if you had a big heart or no heart or a heart three sizes too small. Either way, he didn’t care. He just knew that ‘his’ Sonny beyond the mobster tough guy, beyond all the bullshit, existed here for him and that was all that mattered.

If it wasn’t true, he couldn’t have done what he was doing now.

*

When they got to their destination and Vinnie drove up the long, windy drive, Sonny was asleep curled into a pillow against the side of the door.

It was still night, pitch black. But stars shimmered through the thick trees. The dark house stood silent and still, waiting for them.

Vinnie got out, gasped at the cold air, then went around to the passenger door where Sonny was now stirring. He opened it.

“We’re here,” Sonny mumbled as Vinnie helped him from the car.

“Yeah, we’re here.” He pulled the blanket close around him as Sonny immediately started to shiver in the frigid temperature. Then he put his arm behind him for support. Sonny didn’t protest. He could walk, but he was slow.

Vinnie had parked as close to the porch as possible. He opened the front door and turned on the lights before leading Sonny inside. Then he left him standing for a moment in the front alcove as he hurried to turn on the heat.

“Did you rent this place or something?”

“Leased for the winter.”

“Under what name?”

“My brother’s.”

“He knows?”

“No, he doesn’t know a thing.”

“You stole his I.D.?”

“I made copies. He never knew.” Vinnie came to him again, touching him on the shoulder. “C’mon. There’s a bed made up. I stocked the place with groceries that should last for a little while. Do you want coffee?”

“I just wanna lie down is all,” Sonny replied tiredly.

Vinnie took a short breath in empathy, and led him to the bedroom. The place was one story. He’d wanted that. He didn’t want any steps or things to complicate matters for Sonny’s recovery. It was small but not claustrophobic. The ceilings were high, wood beam and reflecting the golden light. The windows were wide with cheerful treatments in blue and purple. The place came furnished, which was also what Vinnie wanted. Sonny didn’t look at any of it. Head down, all he did was amble slowly until they made it to the closest bedroom and the bed.

“If I sit I won’t get back up. I have to use the bathroom.”

“It’s connected,” Vinnie said, nodding toward the bathroom door.

“Good.”

“Need any help?”

Sonny’s answer was a glare.

“Fine, I’ll go unload the car. Be right back.” He hated leaving Sonny alone but he needed to get their stuff, get them settled. It would only take a few minutes. He hadn’t brought much.

Three trips from the car to the bedroom and the kitchen completed his chore. When he brought Sonny’s two duffels in, Sonny was sitting on the side of the bed still huddled in the same blanket, and seemingly staring at his socks.

“Hey,” Vinnie said, stepping lightly into the room and putting the bags down. “Get in. It’ll warm up soon.” He pushed by Sonny and started to turn down the bed.

Sonny said, “What time is it?”

“Five A.M.”

Sonny struggled to get under the covers, seeming reluctant to let go of his original blanket which was still warm from his body. Vinnie took it gently and placed it over him on top of the bedspread. “Got enough pillows?”

Sonny just grunted, shivering still, and pulling the covers up tight.

“Do you need anything? Are you in pain?”

“Shut up, Vinnie. I’m fine. I just wanna sleep.”

“Call if you need anything. I’ll be around.”

“Yeah, like where would you even go?”

Vinnie smiled, touched him lightly on the forehead, which felt warm, smooth. Sonny did not acknowledge it, just turned away and closed his eyes.

Vinnie turned out the light.

His fingers tingled where he’d touched him so delicately. Sonny looked so small and lost in that bed and for a moment Vinnie had such an urge to get under the covers with him, pull him to him and hold on. Just fucking hold on forever. But Sonny had turned away. And he’d looked so tired. He needed sleep. Uninterrupted sleep. Vinnie was determined to do everything he could to see he got his strength back, recovered fully. What he might want personally…well, he was not going to let that interfere.

Dog-tired himself, Vinnie moved to the other bedroom, leaving Sonny’s door open as well as his own so he could hear if Sonny moved, got up, needed his help.

After using the facilities, he collapsed on his bed still in his suit, though he’d managed to get out of the jacket and tie, and his shoes. He wrapped himself up in the bedspread and blankets and fell instantly to sleep.

He woke, sat up immediately thinking he’d heard something. Only silence met his ears. The day had come. Dim light seeped through the closed curtains.

For a moment he just sat, concentrating. Listening. Everything was so quiet it was almost disconcerting. Such peace. Such serenity. And he felt safe. He couldn’t remember feeling that way in a long, long time.

Then he heard a sound. A mumble from the other room. Indistinct. Low. It came again. Maybe that was why he woke?

Rubbing bleary eyes, he got up. The air was warmer now. The heater had been on and seemed to be working well. Still, he wrapped a spare blanket around himself and moved toward Sonny’s room to check on him. He turned on the hall light as he went. It, along with the curtained daylight, allowed just enough light for him to see Sonny as he entered the room.

Sonny was on his back, one leg bent, the covers partially fallen from his shoulders exposing the top of his chest. His bare shoulders and chest. Vinnie looked down and saw the hospital gown in blue puddle by the door. No doubt thrown there in frustration.

Sonny was moving a little but seemed to be asleep. Still, he seemed agitated, taking small quick breaths.

Vinnie reached down to adjust his covers. His hand brushed Sonny’s shoulder. Sonny gasped, and his eyes opened half way. “Vinnie?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you leaving?”

“What’re you talking about?”

Sonny seemed to contemplate that for too long before saying, cryptically, “I could hear them.”

“Hear who?”

Sonny glanced away. “They were coming through the door. All that noise.”

“No one’s at the door,” Vinnie said quietly. Then he threw caution to the wind and sat down on the edge of the bed beside him.

“That was it. That was the moment.”

“What moment?” But Vinnie knew Sonny was talking about the Rialto. The memory made him sick for a moment, his stomach tightening.

“When it all stopped. When you…” He didn’t continue.

“When I what?”

Sonny swallowed, his breath still shaky. He was looking at the far wall. “When you went away.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here. Right here.” He bounced a little on the bed, trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit, then lifted his legs up on top of the covers and leaned his head back against the headboard. Sitting next to Sonny felt just about right.

Sonny lay very still for a moment. Then he said, “I can’t believe we’re here. In Canada. It’s crazy. It’s all…” He gulped. “You’re daffy, you know that?” His eyes slid to gaze up at Vinnie.

Vinnie suppressed a smile. “Maybe one day we’ll look back on this and laugh.”

“Hell, it’s funny right now.” But he didn’t laugh.

Vinnie frowned for a moment, glancing around. “What’s with the gown?” He nodded toward the blue cloth by the door.

“I hate that thing! It smells funny. I couldn’t get out of it fast enough.”

Vinnie felt his eyes warm at the comfortable rapport that had just seemed to naturally open between them. He winced a little, then playfully grabbed the edge of the covers, lifting a few inches, and asked, “Are you naked under there?”

“I still got my socks,” Sonny answered, slapping his hand away so the covers fell against him again. He held up his right hand from outside the covers. “And this stupid glove.”

Now Vinnie smiled.

“So where were you?”

“Sleeping, idiot.”

“Where?” Sonny looked genuinely inquisitive.

“In the next room. Where do you think I was, at my mom’s?”

“You left?”

Patiently, Vinnie explained slowly because Sonny was being very stupid right now. “I. Was. In. The. Next. Room.”

“Why?”

Vinnie felt his eyebrows raise to new heights. “Because that’s where the other bed is.”

“You shouldn’t have left.”

“Huh?”

“You shouldn’t leave me alone.”

“No?”

“Well, I might try to escape.”

Now Vinnie laughed and turned slightly onto his side to face him. “You wanna leave, you’re free to leave.”

“I don’t have any slippers,” was his response.

“Ah, to go with the gown you threw away.”

“Right.”

Vinnie stared at him. There was something in Sonny’s eyes again, remnants of ‘that look’ and it made things inside him go all warm and liquid. “Well,” softly, “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you.” Then he added, because he felt it was needed, “It’s safe here, Sonny.” Nobody was coming through the door here, and if they did they’d have to go through Vinnie first before they got to Sonny.

Sonny just nodded.

“It’s only around 8 A.M. Think you can sleep some more?”

Sonny nodded again, sighing heavily.

“Okay then.”

Eyes closed, Sonny said sleepily, “You can’t do that again.”

“What?”

“Leave me.”

He swallowed hard, heart beating faster. “It’s a deal.”

Sonny turned toward him, eyes still closed. “You better lie down. Unless you like sleeping sitting up.”

Vinnie pushed himself under the covers, trousers and all. Sonny’s knee bent, brushing Vinnie’s. Then Sonny’s hand was on his shoulder as he curled against Vinnie, pulled the blankets all the way up to his chin, and settled to stillness.

Vinnie’s hand reached up and he brushed his palm against the side of Sonny’s head. He watched Sonny’s lips form a smile, but otherwise Sonny didn’t move.

Vinnie closed his eyes. Warmth seeped into him and made him lethargic and sleepy. The quiet of their surroundings was incredible. Before he knew it, he was asleep.

*

It kind of embarrasses me that I cannot seem to sleep without hearing those infernal guys at the door, all those cops coming for little old me. I must’ve made some kind of noise because Vinnie comes immediately in to check on me. It feels wrong that he has left me in the first place. Plainly wrong.

Now I think he knows this. The error of his ways. Because he certainly doesn’t hesitate to lie down beside me. He seems amused. Eager perhaps. He stays.

I’m warmer now. It’s easier to relax with him here. Weird. But then again not so much. With Vinnie everything is just so right, so natural.

If we’re a little shy with each other that’s natural, too. We’re not used to this. Both being male, it puts past programming to the test. I mean I love women. They’re wonderful. Delightful in every way. But much as I have loved them, not half so much as Vinnie. I can’t say why.

I don’t know what Vinnie thinks, or is thinking, but I do know that he responded to my kiss in the Rialto. And that kiss he gave me in the hospital? Pure Vinnie. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t even see it coming.

I never thought Vinnie was gay. But he’s so open with me. Guess I got lucky. Or unlucky, depending on the way you look at things. I was the unlucky target. But I am lucky that he didn’t just abandon me. I thought he had. I really did. Vinnie never ceases to surprise me.

Everything is better with him here. I fall asleep thinking about that.

*

I wake starving. My body is wrapped around him. He’s sound asleep so I don’t think he minds. When I try to extricate myself he wakes, too. His hand is on my hip. He looks suddenly a little guilty as he pulls away.

“I’m hungry,” I say as if nothing is strange.

He pushes back the covers. “I’ll make breakfast.”

“I’m going to take a shower.”

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, stretching. Then he stands, turns. “Can you manage?”

“Fuck you.”

He looks at me sitting there still half under the covers. His eyes travel down my body past even where it’s covered. Then he gives a sly grin. “Just don’t forget to take off your socks.”

I think about throwing a pillow at him but he’s already out the door before I decide to do it.

I find my stuff he brought in two different bags at the foot of the bed. He packed a lot into those bags. Sweats. Shorts. Socks. Even suits. And my spare Rolex. But I don’t find any shoes. No slippers, either.

I’m feeling pretty good, even if I do move slowly. I’m still so weak. It’s strange to plan strategy just for getting up, walking to another room, even standing in the shower. There are rails in the shower I can hold onto, though, when I feel tired. My knees feel like they just want to give way.

The water is hot and feels good pouring over me. My hand glove is waterproof. I want it off but I’m not sure about the procedure. Nurses took care of that. I don’t know if it’s ready for air or what? And Vinnie says he got my prescriptions. Does that mean I have antibiotics still? I’m not sure. It feels weird that I don’t know anything. That everything is in this man’s hands whom I trusted but who betrayed me, and now I have to trust him again; it’s nuts.

I dress in drawstring pants and a sweatshirt. I find nice, thick socks, too. By the time I’m done with that, and shaving myself mostly left-handed, which is nearly impossible, I’m exhausted. I think about walking out that bedroom door and to the kitchen and I feel ready to collapse. I sit on the side of the bed thinking about it, smelling eggs and toast, listening to Vinnie move around.

Finally Vinnie comes to check on me. “Can you stand?” he asks. He’s changed. He’s wearing jeans now, and a white sweater top.

“Dammit, yes I can stand!” But I just sit there.

He pulls me up. “C’mon. I’m not serving you breakfast in bed unless you really want me to. Do you good to move.” And I know he’s right. I need to move around, walk, or I won’t get any stronger.

I lean on him and we make it to the kitchen. The eggs are cooling in a skillet. He’s made toast and coffee and there’s even fresh fruit. No meat, though. He’s read my diet. I’m not doing much of that right now. Not yet.

Vinnie knows I like fruit: apples, strawberries, melons. I’m always asking for it at restaurants for dessert, which always frustrates him. He likes rich things, mousses, pies ala mode, dripping chocolate cakes. I’ve never been a sweetaholic.

Vinnie puts a plate of food in front of me. I start on the fruit. Then he goes into the living room where I can’t see him for a moment. He comes back with something long and thin in his hand.

“Maybe this’ll help you for a while,” he says, leaning it against the table.

It’s a cane. I hate it. But he’s so smart. He thinks of everything. I used one in the hospital. This will be no different.

Then he moves to the counter and rustles around. He comes back with a handful of pills. “Take these,” he says.

I don’t ask what they are. I pick up my tall glass of orange juice with my left hand and swallow them. He’s thorough. He’s not going to give me anything that’ll kill me.

Sitting in a real chair at a real table eating a real meal is novel. I haven’t done it in a month. It’s nice. We chat about nothing. That’s nice, too. That we can be together and it’s not always a drama.

There’s tension, yes. But it’s a different kind than I was feeling in the Rialto, and in the hospital.

Vinnie says, “There’s not much to do around here, so it’s good for relaxing, recovering. Okay?”

“Sure.” I am using my right hand but it’s hampered by the glove. My food is falling off the fork but most of it is going into my mouth.

“I got a lot of games we can play, including video ones. And cards. And there’s the TV. Or radio.”

“I still sleep a lot,” I say.

“I know.”

“I got all the daytime TV theme songs memorized.”

Vinnie chuckles. “I wanna hear you sing each and every one.”

“In your dreams.”

“So what is your favorite soap?”

I know he’s referring to the TV shows. I reply, “Irish Spring.”

That gets a smirk out of him.

“What? I like the leprechaun.”

Later, after two games of Yatzhee and one of Scrabble where he beat my ass severely, he decides to redress my hand. I have no idea if he knows what he’s doing, and I don’t even know if I can stand to look at it. Before, the nurses took care of it and I would just watch “Match Game” or something while they did.

The palm of my hand is pink and wrinkled. The skin to the side of the graft is still peeling, but everything looks way better than I could have imagined. He puts something on the skin, then wraps it carefully and puts the glove back on. “This can come off in a few days. That was your schedule.”

“Oh yeah, smart guy?” I stare at him challenging.

He takes the challenge. “Yeah.” But then he smiles.

Breakfast was very late. So the next meal will be dinner. Like a baby, I go down for my nap about four. I get up at six and Vinnie feeds me, both food and pills.

I am very well taken care of.

We watch some TV and Vinnie teaches me Rummy, which I have never ever played in my life. I play it left-handed and win the first time out. Victory over Vinnie is worth mentioning. It’s not easy to win in any game you play with that guy.

The only pall over the evening is when the news comes on. We watch American news, of course, and yes there is a story, although not the top story, about us missing, and about a search. They show our photos but it’s real quick, and the photos aren’t so great. Vinnie’s is a little blurry and mine is from when I was in my 20s. They get Vinnie’s age wrong, too, saying he’s 35 when he’s 30. And my height, they claim, is five foot ten. I’m five foot eleven, dammit! There’s some speculation that we might both be armed. We’re both certainly dangerous, they say. Mobsters wanted for conspiracy and the murder of one Paul Patrice (a wonderful photo of him is shown posing in a pristine new suit.) Vinnie’s cover is still intact.

Vinnie just sits there and rolls his eyes.

We change the channel.

I’m so tired I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep on the couch. I’m leaning against him. Dreaming of those guys knocking down the door again. When I wake, I say, “Conspiracy to murder. That’s bad, right?”

“As bad as you can get.” For some reason he’s touching me on the shoulder. Then his hand brushes my face.

“What?”

“You’re awake now, right?” His sweet blue eyes look a little sad.

“Yeah.”

“You were dreaming.”

I shrug, wondering if I was talking, saying stuff. I put it out of my head.

He gets up, then offers me his hand. “C’mon tough guy, time for bed.”

*

Vinnie doesn’t leave me this time. He gets right in next to me. He’s wearing a Fordham t-shirt and shorts. I’m wearing a black tank and shorts. Even if it’s cold outside, it’s nice and warm in the house. I don’t want to see the heating bill after this winter but, well, I can afford it. Since Vinnie stole most of my money, I guess I’m still rich.

I turn onto my stomach and settle in. Sleep comes quickly. When I wake in the middle of the night, though, I’m wrapped around Vinnie. Christ I have it bad for him.

I struggle to get up but I make it to the bathroom without help, and without the damned cane.

When I return, Vinnie is awake in the dark. He says, “Use the damn cane. If you fall, then I have to pick you up. And you may be skinny but you’re still heavy.”

“I’d like to see you try to pick me up.”

“Don’t even test me,” he says, but his voice is light.

As I get into the bed he just curls naturally back into me as if we’ve been sleeping together for years and it’s no big deal. But touching him is a big deal. He makes my head spin. If I weren’t so tired I’d…I’d…

Suddenly my body starts to shake.

“Cold?” Vinnie asks.

“No. It just does that…sometimes.” I’m so disappointed in my damned body. It just won’t cooperate. I feel like screaming. I grit my teeth hard.

Vinnie gently starts rubbing my back. It helps so much. I feel terrible, though. I want to give him more. I let out a frustrated grunt, pressing my face to his shoulder. “I hate this!”

“Shh. You’ll be fine in no time.”

It feels safe here in the darkness. Secure. “Vinnie,” I whisper. “I want you so much.”

He starts to laugh, then hugs me tight. “Sonny…ah god…” And he sounds just as frustrated as me. “Just go to sleep,” he finally concludes.

His hand continues to stroke my back.

*

The silence. The richness of it. And Sonny breathing softly at his shoulder. Sleeping. Perhaps smelling slightly of Irish Spring…well, not really that exact brand. But Vinnie decided he was going to buy some the next time he went to the store. Nothing could be more perfect if he’d planned it down to the last detail.

Part of him had expected more ire from Sonny, more outrage. His betrayal of Sonny had broken the man so badly. In fact, Vinnie blamed himself almost entirely for Sonny’s suicide attempt. The act had been so personally impulsive, so over-the-top violently self-destructive that he was amazed Sonny had come back from it still sane, let alone recognizable.

But Sonny had not turned on him. No. In fact, Sonny seemed more in love with him than ever which made Vinnie feel happy and guilty and thunderstruck all at the same time.

It wasn’t that the fight had gone out of Sonny. In fact, Sonny was fighting very hard to recover from something that probably should have killed him. Sonny was strong. Tough. Not brought down easily.

It was, simply, that Sonny could not stay mad at Vinnie no matter what. He was ruthless with other people, perhaps, but never Vinnie. He may have hated him for awhile. He may have been extremely angry. But Vinnie realized Sonny had never really judged him. Not even from the start when he thought Vinnie had come straight from prison, from the streets, a street-hood with a good education that had been wasted away by a series of wrong turns. That was who Sonny thought Vinnie was, and still he didn’t patronize him, or snub him. Vinnie had only expected a low-level position in the Steelgrave organization when he’d first infiltrated. He had never dreamed Sonny would want to, for lack of a better term, apprentice him.

And even now, Sonny was still Sonny, giving Vinnie the benefit of the doubt. Sure, Vinnie had rescued him. That counted for a lot. But Sonny had every right to still be pissed off, wary, shut down.

Instead, Sonny clung to Vinnie as if he were life itself. Which, in effect, Vinnie was. The alternative, Death Row, was the antithesis to Vinnie’s very plan. That Sonny had agreed to this deal so easily proved yet again to Vinnie that Sonny still loved him, that he had made the right choice. He was never going to regret it. Ever. Not even if Sonny decided to abruptly leave. If he had it all to do over, he’d do the same thing again.

Rescuing Sonny had not been an option to him. It had been a requirement. For his mind, his heart, his soul.

It was morning now, but Sonny still slept quietly. Vinnie had one arm around him but his head was raised enough on a pillow so he could see him. Sonny’s hair was longer. He hadn’t had it cut in awhile. The bangs pressed against his eyebrows, nearly falling into his eyes, and wisps of dark brown hair curved against Sonny’s ears.

Sonny was so warm against him, so alive. Even asleep and weakened from his hospital stay, he was still vibrant, burning. An energy kindled within him, bright and exciting. Vinnie was so drawn to that electricity, that thrill, that sometimes he could think of nothing else.

As he watched, the brown eyes opened. Even drugs and sleep couldn’t erase the brightness of them, and the quivering, always hyper alertness behind them.

Sonny said sleepily, “We can’t keep meeting like this. People will talk.”

“Let them.” Vinnie leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

Sonny squirmed gently against him. “Ah hell,” he muttered, sighing.

But Vinnie was worried. He didn’t want to start anything Sonny wasn’t physically ready for. Mentally, they were both lunatics over each other, but physically Sonny had a way to go. That didn’t mean he couldn’t… But how could they even talk about stuff like that? It seemed quite natural, and yet there were no words to describe what was between them. Love? Of course. But beyond that, Vinnie was speechless. And Sonny just had his longing looks.

Vinnie had decided from the start that because Sonny was the one who’d almost died, who was still recovering from a major trauma, he’d wait for him to make the first move. It seemed the least complicated, most natural route.

He tried not to over think things, either. When he did that, then his mind would wander into questioning areas, where thoughts interfered such as: He’s a man and I’m not gay (am I?), or We’re such good friends so this will be weird. The “weird” part could occupy his thoughts for awhile if he let it. His biggest fear was that things would actually be ‘weird’ if/when they ended up doing stuff, like sex stuff. It made him nervous and that was not his way, and not how he wanted to experience Sonny for the first time or any time.

But then he’d find those thoughts slipping away to nothingness whenever he was around Sonny and everything would miraculously be normal and right and perfect. Whatever flowed between them, it erased all nervousness. He wasn’t afraid of Sonny and Sonny didn’t seem afraid of him. It was just “new love jitters” he suspected, and that made them a bit shy. And unable to talk about actual intimate needs.

And there was the added worry on Vinnie’s mind that involved Sonny’s health. He felt wholly responsible for that and, now that he’d taken Sonny, literally stolen him from the arms of the law, resolutely protective.

“So what are you going to do?”

The voice interrupted his ponderings. Vinnie realized his eyes were closed. He opened them to see Sonny’s electric stare. He could not be sure in that moment if Sonny had not read every single one of his thoughts telepathically.

Vinnie’s hand still rested against Sonny’s waist. The other was propped up under his pillow. They were on their sides facing each other.

Sonny grinned at him then, not lasciviously, just sweet. And Vinnie’s fears simply vanished. Sonny wanted him. He’d said it last night. He could do anything and he probably wouldn’t be wrong. Because, simply, what was between them was just…right.

So he leaned forward and kissed Sonny gently on the lips. Lips that tasted like salt and wind and rain.

Sonny laughed against his mouth, pulled back. “So…this.” The wide smile trembled on his mouth. “Finally.”

Vinnie bit down on his own grin. “It’s just I haven’t… I never.” He laughed.

Sonny patted him a little roughly on the cheek, almost a slap, then rested his hand against his hair. “It’s just me.” And suddenly he looked a little sad. “Like that’s some big deal.” He moved closer until their chests were touching and they were breathing each other’s breaths.

“It is a big deal.” Vinnie’s hand moved up to cup the back of Sonny’s head. “To me.”

“I meant, babe, that for two people like us it ought not to be so complicated if it’s what we both want.”

“It’s more complicated because of that. It’s more…”

Sonny interrupted him, left hand stroking softly at his hair. “It’s like you take one breath. And then another. It’s easy.”

“Not easy if you’ve just discovered breathing for the first time in your life.”

Sonny laughed and moved slowly over him, his weight pinning him but also grounding him, heated, good. Through their clothes, Vinnie could feel that Sonny was aroused. Why that should seem so amazing to him, he wasn’t sure. But it was. A feeling as if he’d been let in, accepted, and never judged. He hugged him to him, heart pounding.

He’d never been with a guy before but this was…Sonny.

Sonny said, as if reading his mind again, “I don’t care.” Then again, softer, “I don’t care.” And he kissed Vinnie, smooth, velvet, then open and damp. Vinnie’s whole body caught in that force and lurched up. He kissed Sonny back like he’d never kissed anyone before.

He wanted it desperately, he wanted it slow. This pleasure. This love.

Feeling Sonny against him, feeling all of him was like access to the heart, the very core of need and longing and desire all at once. He couldn’t recall ever loving anybody more than he loved Sonny, and now understood how people could toss everything into the wind for love. It might look stupid, frivolous, but it was not. It was as real as taxes and death, this feeling. And worth risking his very soul.

And hadn’t he done just that? Defied Frank and the entire OCB, tricked hospital staff and raided computer files, bank files, even his own brother’s I.D….all for love.

Before that, Sonny had given him, seemingly, everything. First it confused him. It was nice enough. But now…now he wanted it all. Everything Sonny had to give. Flashing back he was able to just radiate in the pleasure of it all. “Here’s the keys to a car. It’s a Porsche. A red one, I think.” “You need new suits? Go downstairs and get some. Charge ‘em to my account.” “You can use this suite until the owner comes back. But he’s upstate for, I dunno, five…ten years. He’s not coming back any time soon.” “It’s a surprise. I’m giving you the Marine.” “You were gonna be my best man!” “How are you gonna remember this, Vinnie? How’re you gonna remember me?” “I loved you, man.”

Suddenly Vinnie pulled back with a cry. All those memories. All that Sonny had given him. How had he managed to convince himself he could still deceive him? “I’m sorry, Sonny. I’m so sorry I didn’t see you, the real you, sooner!”

“Huh?” Sonny grabbed him behind the neck, holding his gaze in place, pushing his weight harder against Vinnie’s body.

Vinnie shook his head, looking at him now in his arms after all they’d gone through, after Sonny’s so long stay in the hospital. “I need to tell you… I didn’t mean to hurt you so bad. I didn’t.”

Sonny just smiled down at him. “You yourself said it. I have free will, Vinnie. In this world you make your own luck. And look what you’ve done. I’m free. I’m free because of you.”

Vinnie winced, his throat still threatening to close up. “Just please forgive me.” He realized he was breathing a little hard.

Sonny gave a heavy sigh. He leaned down and kissed Vinnie on the forehead, then both cheeks. “You don’t need my forgiveness. Just this.” He kissed him on the chin, then the cheeks again. “And this.” The forehead. Then he was kissing him on the mouth until Vinnie’s head spun as if all the air had gone out of the room.

*

Ah god.

I don’t go for rich, thick, sweet desserts. I don’t go for ‘sweet’!

But this guy… His strength. His heart. His smarts. His oh so gorgeous guilt.

I cannot resist!

I’d still give him anything he wanted whether he asks for it or not.

Forgiveness? Sure. He has it. Why is it so easy with him? Why do I want to just say yes to anything, everything he’s about? Okay, Vinnie. We’ll do it your way, Vinnie. It’s a deal, Vinnie. Where do I sign?

I use both hands to tug at his shirt. He lifts up and lets me pull it off. For once my right hand doesn’t cramp up, or pull, or sting, doesn’t even hurt. I run my hands down his flat chest, the gloved one, the naked one. He’s so gorgeous I can’t see anything else.

Then he’s pulling my shirt off me which is real nice. I like it. I like being undressed. Like the other person can’t wait to get at me. 

We’re kissing again, our bare chests pressed together, and everything else. He’s hard against me, feeling good. Real good. Everything with Vinnie is always fucking fantastic. My whole body tingles, burns.

I’ve been on top of Vinnie before. It’s a heady feeling. But that first time I was slugging him when I should’ve been kissing him, just always kissing him. Kissing him mad. Kissing him glad. Kissing him bad because I’ve never wanted anyone so much.

His hands wander down to the waistband of my shorts, go under and clutch me closer to him. I can’t believe how eager and ready I am. Well, it’s been over a month since I’ve done anything like this with anyone…Theresa was the last and she’d never spend the night with me saying, “Not until we’re married.”

But nothing compares to Vinnie’s hands on me. Nothing. Whatever this is between us, this wildfire, this intense magnetism…I haven’t had it before. Not ever. I want to take my time with him. But I don’t know if I can even…

“Ah…” His hands go further down, pulling me up until I’m between his legs while at the same time he’s pushing my shorts down, off. Then he tugs at his own. I move aside a little to help. He’s so lovely. He’s so…

He wraps his legs around mine, holding me close, grinding up and I’ve got him in my arms and it’s real and fresh and alive and not strange at all, just everything I’m wanting and have been wanting since I met him.

I need it to all slow down so I can savor it. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. But I want to see him. I want to look at him. I want to look into those sea-deep eyes of his, my journey, my refuge, and watch his pleasure, touch it, worship it and never stop.

I reach between us, catch his hip with my palm and pull him onto his side facing me. He kisses me as I move my hand between his legs, caressing. The kissing stops as he groans. “Sonny…” His head goes back, his eyes close and he’s gently thrusting in my hand. I lean toward him, tighten my grip. All that pent up hardness, all the Vinnie-angst and compassion and desire has built up to this and I love it.

“Please,” I whisper. “Vinnie. Look at me.”

He opens those incredible eyes. They’re swimming; looks as if he’s about to sob or break apart. His dark bangs scatter softly across his tall forehead. I kiss him gently, pull back and whisper again, “Look at me.” Stroking as he moves his hips. The covers are on the floor now. I want to look down. I want to look at him.

Vinnie dressed in a suit is like fine wine. But Vinnie undressed beats all. I need to tell him that, but all I can do is watch him, gauge his reactions, give him the pleasure I’ve been wanting to give him for so long now. So long.

He’s simply breathtaking the way he moves, the way his arms come up to clutch me. His eyes roll up but then he’s looking at me again, pulling me closer, moving his hips. He tries to kiss me but he’s so distracted by my hand and I want it that way, I want him like this, lost, shuddering, throbbing in my palm. I crave more for him, but I’ll get to that later.

He groans again, low in his throat and the sound grows, inarticulate but begging in its tone. I grasp harder, stroke faster, pull him to me, kiss him, kiss him, and then it happens and I pull back and just watch his face as he cries out again, again. And again.

He grabs me hard. “Sonny!” He kisses me, then starts laughing. He’s not laughing at me, or even at himself. He’s just…happy. I’ve never seen anyone like him.

He pushes me onto my back and starts stroking my hair, kissing me some more. I can’t get enough. My hands clutch his hips, the left one rubbing the precious essence of him into his skin there, silken, taut, curved. I need more of him. I want him all over me. Wet. Smooth. Liquid. He presses against me, still damp, and I’m already wet from being so turned on. I thrust up, feeling myself encased between us.

He lifts up then, turns a little. His hand goes down, cupping my balls. My breath catches.

“Sonny,” he says, “Christ. You’re amazing…” Reassurances in bed. That’s my perfect Vinnie. His palm strokes, cups evenly. I’m so hard, hot, my erection wavering at my belly. Then his hand goes around the base, his head suddenly slips down and he slides the flushed tip between his lips.

I gasp, almost sitting up. At first it’s just fluttering licks and kisses, but then it’s more, and more. He moves further down and his mouth is so goddamn hot and sweet that I can’t think as the room fairly spins.

It’s unbelievable, that mouth, sucking harder, all of me now, and then I’m afraid because Vinnie’s never done this before and I don’t want to… “Vinnie!” I warn. “Vinnie!” That makes him do it harder so then I know he’s okay, he wants this, he wants me, and I let go and everything goes white.

White.

Grabbing him, dragging him up, I’m still breathing real hard. “Vinnie, I can’t believe…”

“Shush!” But he’s smiling and he pulls me up for a kiss and I taste his sweetness and my own pleasure mingled. I like it. We’re both breathing hard, both still damp and slippery as we move together, legs entwining. Clinging.

For a long time there’s more kissing, more petting.

Later, he suggests almost nonchalantly, “While this is excellent exercise, we should try for a walk around the yard today, see how far you get.”

I reach up, running my hand through his bangs. “Babe, you have planned everything perfectly in every detail. You’re still doing it. But one thing still is missing.”

Confused. “What?”

“You remembered everything. Everything but my shoes. So.” I kiss him. “No walks in the yard until I get some.”

Vinnie leans back, one arm over his head. “Fuck. I knew I was forgetting something!”

I laugh.

He turns his head, eyes me sweetly. “Ah well, I didn’t feel like getting out of bed today anyway.”

*

“God gave me everything I want  
Come on  
I’ll give it all to you”

\--Mick Jagger and Lenny Kravitz

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: The lyrics to the song “Play With Fire” are by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
> 
> The third season Wiseguy episode “To Die In Bettendorf” brings up problems which I try to solve in this story. This is the episode about Sidney Royce two years after the Steelgrave arc, and it shows how Frank came to decide Sidney’s fate and new life in wit-sec. There is a flashback in that episode to just after the Steelgrave arc where Vinnie sits in on the session where Frank gives Sid his “just desserts.” It cannot be more than approx. a week after the Steelgrave arc, yet Vinnie shows no signs of trauma on his face, no signs of depression, and in fact seems nonchalant and gleefully happy as he sits in on Sid’s proceedings. He’s glib, casual, even laughing…and it is just so very very wrong and so out of character. Of course this is a continuity error on the part of the writers and director (and perhaps even the actor,) especially since Vinnie is so prone to depression then and later on in the series, but it still offers up questions for the imaginings of a fan’s mind run wild. Maybe Vinnie was on some really good drugs? Or maybe, as I decided in my version of events where Sonny lives, Vinnie is up to something and is simply doing a very good job of faking “normal” so no one will suspect. So I put that into my story…just because.
> 
> “Come and share this painting with me  
> Unveiling of me, the magician that never failed  
> This deep sigh coiled around my chest  
> Intoxicated by a major chord  
> I wonder…Do I love you or the thought of you?”
> 
> “Slow, Love, Slow,” Nightwish  
> *  
> If you enjoyed this work by Natasha Solten, you may also enjoy her m/m romances on Kindle under her non-fanfic name: Wendy Rathbone. Look for "The Foundling," "The Secret Sharer" and the soon to be released "None Can Hold the Dark" (due in fall 2013.) She also has an sf novel out, and a collection of poetry.


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